The great tremor that shook the Frozen Raven Keep to its foundations was the beginning of the end. In the midst of that chaos, the Lich's enraged screams were more terrifying than the roar of collapsing stone—a shriek of pure hatred that cut through the cacophony of destruction.
"You have destroyed everything!" he screeched, the violet fire in his eye sockets flaring wildly, transforming from cold, calculating light into an uncontrollable hellish blaze. Instead of trying to flee his fate, the hatred he had harbored for centuries now focused on a single target: Valerius. "If I must return to dust and be forgotten, then I will drag your stubborn soul into oblivion with me!"
The Lich raised his skull-tipped staff high. In a final, desperate act, he became a vortex of necrotic energy. All the dark power left in the chamber—the essence of the shattered corpses, the bleeding altar, and the foul remains of himself—was sucked into a single point. The air around him warped and darkened as he gathered strength for one last incantation. It was no longer a bolt or a projectile. This was an unmaking—a tiny black hole of hatred designed to erase a soul from existence.
Valerius, swaying unsteadily across the chamber, watched with blurred vision. The Cuneus Aeternus had drained nearly all of his magical and spiritual strength. It felt as if his very soul had been stretched thin to the point of tearing. He tried to lift a hand to form a shield—even the simplest ward—but his body refused. His muscles quivered uncontrollably, and all he managed to conjure were a few feeble ice crystals that formed at his fingertips before shattering uselessly on the quaking floor. He had nothing left to fight with.
He stared straight at the Lich, into the vortex of darkness that would be his end. In his ice-blue eyes, there was no longer any blazing magic—only a cold, unyielding defiance. If this was to be the end—after all the battles, all the losses, and all the bitter victories—then he would face it standing, looking his destruction in the eye.
But before the Lich could unleash the spell, a towering, broken shadow fell from above. His ice golem—his proud creation—now cracked and unstable, its surface riddled with black pits from the Lich's attacks. The magical bonds that held it together had finally snapped, and it was collapsing under its own weight. Yet, with the last flicker of its creator's will still lingering in its core, it performed one final, magnificent act. It did not strike. With a slow, ponderous movement, it simply let its ton-weighted body topple forward—straight toward the Lich in the midst of his incantation.
The Lich looked up, the violet fire in his sockets widening in a moment of shocked realization. But it was too late. With a sickening crunch of pure ice smashing brittle bone and ancient stone, the giant golem crashed down, crushing the Lich and his staff to shards beneath a mountain of frozen ruin. The soul-erasing spell, severed from its master in the final heartbeat, detonated without a target. The ball of dense darkness shot upward, striking the cavern ceiling and accelerating the total collapse with a monstrous force.
Valerius did not waste a single heartbeat. He turned and ran.
"Thank you, my friend," he whispered to his creation—now just a heap of shattered ice, its last sacrifice granting him the chance to live.
He sprinted across the slanted, cracking floor, vaulting over yawning gaps exhaling unstable magical vapors. Pure adrenaline and the primal need to survive drove his exhausted body beyond any sane limit. Behind him, the cracked crystal Heart finally surrendered. With a final shriek that tore through reality itself, it imploded—then exploded—unleashing a shockwave of pure, ungovernable energy. A cataclysmic fusion of creation and decay erased everything inside the cavern: the altar, the corpses, the remains of the golem—consumed in a storm of white and violet brilliance.
Valerius dove into the narrow passage he had entered through just as the shockwave struck the cavern entrance, sealing it forever behind a roaring avalanche of black ice and rock. He was once more trapped in total darkness—but this time, it was not a silent dark. It was a darkness filled with the thunderous death of the fortress itself.
He ran blind. There was no time, no strength left to conjure even a flicker of light. Every step was a wager between life and annihilation. His hands groped along the vibrating, cracked ice walls to stay oriented. The corridor itself had become a living enemy. Chunks of rock and ice the size of wagons crashed from the ceiling around him. He couldn't see them fall—he could only sense their deadly descent by the whistle of air and the primal instinct that made him hurl himself aside at the last instant, narrowly evading oblivion again and again.
He could feel the fortress's magical structure unraveling like torn fabric. The air was no longer merely cold—it sparked with stray magic that seared his skin like a thousand needles. Ahead, the passage began to distort and shift, the laws of physics themselves reduced to vague suggestions. In one moment, the floor suddenly angled into a steep ice slide. He skidded down uncontrollably, hands clawing at the walls to slow his descent before the floor leveled out again with a jarring impact that made his teeth clack together.
He kept running, breath ragged in his burning lungs. That was when he began to hear the whispers again—clearer than ever. They were the psychic echoes of the dying fortress, releasing all the centuries of suffering and hatred it had devoured. He heard Elara's voice crying out his name in desperation, Elder Elian's voice accusing him of failure, Gregor's voice mocking him. And then, worst of all, he heard the voice he had buried deeper than any other—the voice of a woman from his past, her warm laughter now twisted into a heartbreaking sob.
"You left us," the voice whispered in his mind. "You always run."
"No," Valerius growled to himself, shaking his head violently to banish the phantoms. "I don't run. I survive."
He leaped another newly formed gap—but this time, his luck ran out. As he landed, a jagged stalactite crashed from above, slashing across his left arm. Agonizing pain flared as the ice shard ripped through cloth and skin, leaving a gaping wound from shoulder to elbow. Hot blood poured instantly, searing against the cold, freezing at the edges of his shredded sleeve. He gasped—but he did not stop. He pressed his right hand against the wound and staggered onward.
Then he saw it. Far ahead, at the end of the collapsing corridor, a dim light. Not magical glow—but the cold, ashen light of the outside world filtering through the main entrance. His beacon—his promise of freedom. The sight sent a fresh surge of strength through him, born of pure desperation.
With the last reserves of his will, he drove himself faster. He no longer felt pain. His legs became unthinking machines. Behind him, the floor gave way, swallowed by the darkness that chased him like a ravenous beast. He was only meters from the exit when the entire ceiling behind him collapsed. The compressed blast of air slammed into him like a battering ram.
He wasn't running anymore—he was flying. The shockwave hurled him out through the fortress's entrance like a bullet from a cannon.
For a heartbeat, the world fell silent and slow. He saw the wide grey sky, the soft drifting snowflakes, the snow-laden pines. Then gravity reclaimed him. Valerius crashed down into a deep drift of powdery snow, which mercifully broke his fall. He tumbled and slid until he came to rest, face buried in the cold softness.
Behind him, the Frozen Raven Keep screamed one final time. With an ear-splitting roar that shook the entire mountain range, its once-proud towers collapsed. The whole fortress caved inward, swallowing all its darkness, horror, and vile history in a colossal avalanche of black ice and shattered rock. The mountain itself seemed to exhale in relief as the ancient corruption was finally purged.
Then, silence fell. True, absolute silence—peaceful and clean. Snow began to fall harder, as if the world itself was trying to heal, covering the mountain's scars with a fresh white shroud.
For a long time, Valerius simply lay there, his ragged breaths melting a small hollow in the snow beneath his face. He was alive. He had done it.
With agonizing effort, he pushed himself upright. He managed to get to one knee, his entire body shaking uncontrollably. He looked down at his hands—trembling so violently he could barely clench them. He had won. He had destroyed the source of that evil. Oakhaven was safe.
Yet the victory felt strangely hollow. He was utterly spent. Every fiber of his muscles throbbed, every drop of his magic was gone. The pain from his wounded arm throbbed in time with his heartbeat. He realized his ankle was badly sprained from the landing. He felt a fatigue so deep, so final, that it seemed death itself was flowing in his veins.
He lifted his gaze through swelling eyes—and through the falling snow, he saw it. In the distance, among the frozen pines, stood a familiar silhouette—patient and unshakable. Boreas, his loyal horse, waiting. The creature had sensed his master's peril, but his command to wait had been stronger.
A thin, weary, triumphant smile cracked Valerius's bleeding lips. He tried to call to the horse, but no sound came from his raw, dry throat. Darkness began creeping in from the edges of his vision—not the darkness of the fortress, but the darkness of a body finally giving out.
His right hand fumbled weakly at his chest, searching. His numb fingers found the leather pouch Elara had given him. It was cold and wet on the outside—but somehow, he could still imagine the warmth of the bread within, the simple goodness of that gesture. For the first time in a very long while, he held onto the memory of warmth, not the memory of loss.
"At least…" he whispered to the snow-laden wind, "…I won."
At last, his strength abandoned him completely. His iron will had carried him this far—but his body could go no further. His eyes closed, and he fell forward again, his face sinking into the cold, soft snow. The world he had reclaimed from darkness faded gently into black.